CBS News97%
Ex-Secret Service deputy director breaks down security response to correspondents' dinner shooting 74%
4/27/2026, 11:40:10 PM
BS Summary: This video contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Appeal to Authority, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Overconfidence Bias as the most egregious example at 30.5% saturation with 207 hits. Analysis detected 1,525 faulty-reasoning hits from 679 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 67.1% and a BS Rank of 74% (4,385 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 73.90% of the video peer group.
Let's go ahead and bring in AT Smith.
He
served as deputy director of the US
Secret Service from 2012 to 2015 and
he's also a CBS News law enforcement analyst.
So, I I want to ask you what I was just talking about with Aaron McLean because yesterday when I was speaking with you here on CBS News 24/7, you believed that this was a success.
This
was an example of the apparatus working
as it should.
Since we have talked, have have you thought about any security concerns from the entrance to that hotel to those metal detectors?
Well, as we know now that individual was obviously a guest in the hotel and was able to make his way down to the floor where the magnetometer was and then charged that general area and get past that.
That's generally considered the
middle perimeter.
So, that is the thing the Secret Service is going to have to take a look at and probably have a lot of discussions with host committees and other events that they may do at that venue.
The evacuation, the protection of the protectees as well as the general public and ultimately stopping that assailant were all successful.
They're not necessarily pristine answers to all these questions, but in terms of what the Secret Service does every day and trains for, that did occur and that was the successful evacuation of the president, the first lady as well as the vice president and then you saw within a few seconds the counter assault team come out and cover the evacuation of the president while the agents were around him.
Ultimately, all of the other cabinet members and folks that had security, some of which is Secret Service, some is not.
Some of the other cabinet officials have protection through their own entities or their own agents, not the Secret Service.
So, there's a combination of things that went on there and I think in the days leading up to this, everyone was briefed and on the same page about evacuation and ultimately evacuating those folks safely did occur.
No one luckily was hurt and then as we said, the assailant was taken into custody.
Are there things they're going to have to look at?
Yes. Since you and I talked, spoken to people in the Secret Service, they're certainly going to do an after action, you know, on this event and I'm sure they'll make, you know, their own internal recommendations.
I know the FBI is leading the investigation.
I would imagine they will have some recommendations as well and I think the point I made last night was they will have to take a look at this middle perimeter, if you will.
Inner perimeter very secure, the middle perimeter they need to look at and then of course that
outer perimeter is the general public
and that's a real issue to deal with
when you're dealing with an event
[snorts] at a hotel that's open to the public.
There are customers, guests, people in those rooms coming and going that have no association with this event.
So, it's a it's a way you it's a way you it's a
event.
So, it's a it's a way you it's a
little bit of a give and take on on
trying to accommodate everything you need to do.
I have to be quick with you
because we're out of time, but if the Secret Service were consulting you for their review, would you and they asked you, is it safe to hold this dinner here at this hotel?
What would you tell them?
I would say at this point, yes, with some changes.
As I said, this middle perimeter needs to be looked at a little harder
and that may involve posting different locations and and denying certain access at certain points to make sure that no one gets close to that magnetometer checkpoint.
AT Smith, thank you for your time.
You bet.
Analysis
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